ML>> i can see where a bbs user would have that point of view...
 ML>> echomail messages, however, are sent to specific systems
 ML>> connected to the echo at the originating system... unless
 ML>> the archive of messages is corrupted at one end or the other
 ML>> or during transmission or the software at the receiving end
 ML>> is buggy, the messages actually travel a well known and very
 ML>> tracable path... see below...

 NB> Well, yes, I know that actually echomail "echoes" from one
 NB> bbs to another, along the usual routes or paths... and I've
 NB> seen the SEEN BY stuff before, as well.

seenby is just a list of systems that will have seen the messages...
there's also a PATH line and that's the more important one as it tells the
route the message traveled in the "streams" (like a fish) to get
to your system... seen by lines really don't mean squat other than seeing
the systems that are connected to a system... even then, they don't all
show up and then there are also times when a hub needs to run in "tiny
seen by" mode where the seen by lines are chopped off... this is when
that hub is handling echo traffic between zones... seen by and path lines
are 2D and there may be the same 2D address in more than one zone... ie:
1:456/789 and 2:456/789... the 2D part is 456/789 and one or the other of
those two systems won't see the messages with that 2D address in the seen
by line...

 NB> Hence stating that echomail and routed netmail
 NB> follow the same paths... :)

yes, kinda but that cannot be counted on or guaranteed... in fidonet the
path from one system to another cannot be guaranteed because connections
are changing all the time...

 NB> I admit to being just a wee bit fanciful in my previous
 NB> description... 

hehehe...

 NB> (But you do have to admit that there do
 NB> sometimes seem to be random black holes that gobble up the
 NB> echomail, so that it doesn't always make it to the person it
 NB> was intended for, though it may have been seen by others
 NB> along the way... that corruption of the archive you were
 NB> referring to, no doubt! )

yes, that happens because some system along the way gets a corrupt packet
or archive and either can handle it or possibly even a message in the
bundle is too large for the system's software and it trashes it in the
bitbucket... the real problem i have with that is that the fidonet specs
for messages say that the bodies are unbounded which means that they can be
of any size... its been lazy programmers that have written inexpensive and
free software that have skewed the perceptions and not designed their
software to spool messages larger than available memory to temporary disk
files for proper handling... this is much like "one of the biggest
things that microsoft has done is to convince people that computers are
inherently faulty" when they are not... its the programs that are
faulty ;)

 ML>> ===== quote =====
 ML>> This report covers 5 unique pathlines in area BLUEWAVE as
 ML>> seen from 3634/12.
 ML>> 3634/12
 ML>> +105/50--105/360--106/2000--123/500--123/666
 ML>> +106/2000--123/500--123/140
 ML>> +123/666
 ML>> +323/120
 ML>> ===== quote =====

 ML>> you can see that my system is directly connected to two
 ML>> systems... 105/50 and 106/2000... there are three systems
 ML>> connected to 123/500... you can also see that there is more
 ML>> than one path for messages coming to me via 123/500... these
 ML>> are the only known systems connected to this echo... unless
 ML>> someone posts a message from a system not in the above
 ML>> chart, we'll never know if there is anyone else out there
 ML>> connected to this echo...

 NB> Of course, there have been other systems connected in the
 NB> past, and most likely there are lurkers reading this echo on
 NB> other bbs's.  Actually, one could leave out "most likely"...
 NB> as, case in point, I* read this echo on chowda (323/120),
 NB> doc's (123/140), fonix (in GB, zone 2), and collin county
 NB> station in TX, and could theoretically answer from any one of
 NB> them, but normally, I answer from only chowda, and lately,
 NB> occasionally doc's.

yep... without a post from those other systems, there's no way to tell who
is connected... only traffic from them will tell... ya ought to drop a
message in from those other two and lets get a larger picture or the echo's
distribution ;)

)\/(ark